The wild world of sports and politics rarely collide, but they did so last week when two assistant coaches in the NFL lost their jobs because they refused to get the vaccine. One of them was former Houston Texans assistant Rick Dennison.

The NFL can’t fire players for refusing to get the vaccine because they have a collective bargaining agreement that bars such action, but you can believe if a player is on the bubble and refused to get the shot, he will likely be out on the street. While the league is not barring players from performing, they are highly incentivizing getting the vaccine.

If a player tests positive without getting the vaccine it could cause his team to forfeit a game. If that happens then no one on either team will get their paycheck. Money is always a great motivator and when you are talking as much as one million dollars in the form of a game check you better believe there will be peer pressure.

However, this is where we get to the point of asking how we even got here in the first place. There are people that are incapable of getting vaccines. They might suffer an allergic reaction or they have some other medical reason why they cannot. While I question it, there are also folks that have a religious objection. I’m not talking about these folks.

Other countries have both sets of folks within their borders and yet have found a way to get more than 70 percent of people 12 and older vaccinated. The U.S. isn’t quite to 50 percent. It is that gap that threatens to keep the virus going through the next several years. It is a merry band of idiots that are either questioning the safety of the vaccine or the efficacy of the vaccine. Then again, I don’t think they are using big words like efficacy.

At the heart of this debate are the rights of the individual and how far they extend. Everyone has the right to be a dumbass up until the exercising of their rights interfere with my safety. We’ve done this for years. Students have to have certain vaccinations by certain dates to be able to attend school. I’m not sure why COVID is so different.

I’m not sure why we have to be so stupid about this. In the past several months, the Texas Education Agency has decided to not fund virtual learning, but students under 12 can’t get vaccinated. Then, you have only 50 percent of those eligible getting vaccinated. If just one of those facts were mitigated somehow we would be okay. Yet, here we are stuck on freedumb. You can’t force me to do a solid for my neighbors and my community.

A party that is supposedly dedicated to life seems to be treating everyone’s life cavalierly. The irony if palpable. We made everyone get the polio vaccine and we eradicated it from the face of the earth. We did the same with small pox. We currently require measles and mumps vaccinations. They’ve even added one for chicken pox. I’m still struggling to understand why this is so difficult.

Nobody watches Fox and Friends for enlightenment. Okay, maybe that’s a stretch. Obviously, some people watch for enlightenment, but it surely isn’t anyone that is actually enlightened. Brian Kilmeade uttered pretty much the dumbest thing ever on the show and that is saying a great deal. You can enjoy the Seth Meyers video below. The Fox and Friends segment is embedded inside.

For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, I will summarize the brilliant comments from Kilmeade. It seems that his partner in crime was actually throwing out facts on the virus and vaccine. He admitted that 99 percent of the people currently being hospitalized for COVID were people that had not been vaccinated.

This is where Kilmeade pounced on his opportunity to offer his educated opinion. It’s not the government’s job to protect people. Yup, you heard that right. It is not their job to protect us. Somehow, I don’t remember that being the case, but it’s been a hot minute since I’ve sat through a political science class. Let’s double check.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”

Preamble to the U.S. Constitution>

Okay, I was right. It’s right there in the preamble to the constitution. They even added promote the general welfare in case there was any confusion. So, let’s say that Kilmeade was right and that it isn’t the government’s job to protect us. Okay, why do we have a defense department? Why do we have branches of the military (including Space Force)?

Moreover, why do we have a Food and Drug Administration. Why do we have a Securities and Exchange Commission? Why do we have an EEOC? Why do we have an FCC? Why do we have a CDC? I could go on and on, but I think most Americans get the idea. Brian Kilmeade is an idiot.

His partner in crime inadvertently admitted the vaccine was effective. So, what’s the problem? Well, the problem is that Fox and Friends, other talking heads at Fox, OANN, and other conservative pundits have spent their time discrediting the vaccine even as they themselves got the vaccine. It’s a staggering example of hypocrisy that you rarely see on this grand a scale.

The goal I suppose is to make sure Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress is ultimately unsuccessful. That sentiment is normal. However, there have always been unspoken rules that both parties used to follow. Politics used to end at our shores and politics used to end when the public was in danger. You know, all the general welfare stuff.

Apparently, there are no more rules of engagement. We are fighting a vaccine we know is effective. We are fighting a 1/6 commission when we all saw a violent insurrection live on television. We are fighting the idea that everyone eligible to vote should be able to vote relatively easily. Kilmeade’s comments fit perfectly. It’s not the government’s job to do the only real job spelled out in the constitution. Makes perfect sense.

When Trump was infected, he received an anti-viral treatment only ten other Americans had received.  He then bragged about how easy it was to overcome the virus.  When Giuliani was infected, he was given similar treatment.  Now Trump and his circle are jumping the line to get these treatments and the vaccine.  Let’s be clear here.  Between Trump, Giuliani, Pompeo, and many other in his inner circle, their carelessness has  exposed thousands of people to the Coronavirus infecting an unknown amount of people because of his resistance to any viable contact tracing protocol.

Even as this line-jumping is occurring, his sycophants now want Biden to “unify the country” by giving Trump credit for the vaccine.  In the Washington Post this morning, former GWB speech writer Marc Thiessen demanded just that, saying that Trump deserves credit for Operation Warp Speed, which never participated or supported the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine developed in Germany.  While providing funding for some manufacturing, this vaccine was developed with no US participation.  In fact, Trump’s incompetence put the US at the back of the global line for the vaccine since they refused to buy vaccine for more than 50 million people (yes it takes TWO doses to vaccinate, so the 100 million doses Trump touts only vaccinates half that number).   There are about 275 million people in the US over the age of 16.  The Pfizer vaccine will only cover less than 20%.

Trump has spent the better part of a year downplaying the virus, holding super spreader events, firing staff and insulting science ands scientists and now to “unify” the country we should now give him credit for the vaccine?  Fuck that.  We’re finally going to see him flee to Mar a Lago sometime between now and January 20 to continue inflicting damage on our society by tweeting his grievances.  It will take the Biden administration an untold number of months to begin repairing the vast damage Trump has inflicted on us.  The LAST thing he deserves is praise for anything.  It’s time to give Trump what he deserves – anonymity and criminal charges.  We can start by disabling his Twitter account.

Sarah Gilbert, professor of virology at Oxford University gave an update in the medical journal The Lancet today.  They have started human trials and expect to have vaccinated 500 volunteers by mid-May, will then vaccinate volunteers 55 to 70 years old, then over 70.  They expect to have 5,000 volunteers vaccinated in the program, and are cooperating with researchers in other countries to begin parallel programs.  They are sharing their data to other virologists.

Gilbert says they can still have manufactured vaccines available by September, but say that is a best case scenario.  Grants have already be made to scale up manufacturing capacity.  I understand that there are 20 vaccine programs around the globe under way.

Fingers and toes crossed.

Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University, told the Times of London today that she’s 80% confident they have the vaccine and that human trials begin in two weeks.  The vaccine could be ready for distribution as early as September.  Oxford is in discussions with the UK government to begin production of the vaccine even before human trials are complete.  Here’s hoping…